The present invention relates to oil collection agents which are used in a process to contract and collect oil slicks from a thin oil film occupying a large area of the water surface to a thicker oil film occupying a substantially smaller area of said water surface. This method enables the physical removal of the oil from the water and hence is desirable.
Water pollution, occasioned by the discharge of oil into water, results in the formation of oil slicks and is a well-known hazard. A highly visible film having an area of about one square mile can be formed with only fifty gallons of oil. Such oil slicks or films are undesirable not only from an aesthetic standpoint but also because cohesive oil films represent a barrier to the transfer of oxygen from the atmosphere to support marine life, a serious hazard to marine fowl as well as a serious shore contaminant.
The pollution of water by oil slicks is sometimes inadvertently occasioned by discharge of ballast water from oil tankers or from offshore drilling operations or from tanker collisions. Various techniques have been devised for solving these oil contamination problems. One solution is related to the use of detergents to emulsify the oil with the water; also dispersants for dispersing the oil with water have been suggested. However, the use of strong detergents has resulted in severe damage to marine life and the dispersants, while generally nontoxic, are not always proven effective for dispersing highly viscous seaborne oil slicks. At the present time, the use of dispersants to disperse oil slicks is a subject of study by various government regulatory agencies. This study has precluded the use of said dispersants in inland waterways. The various regulatory agencies concerned with water pollution occasioned by oil slicks would seemingly be desirous of a method which aids in the complete removal of the oil from the water.